Six Things Dean Never Wanted To Do and One He Did
by Indus
Summary: Post AHBLspoilers abound. Basically a look at the next year. First Chapter Dean's POV, second chapter Sam's.
1. Chapter 1

6 Things Dean Wants do Do, and One He Doesn't

Indus

Rating: Gen, PG  
**Spoilers: All episodes so far, including 2.22**  
Summary: Title should pretty much give it away  
Characters: Sam, Dean, a few others thrown in for minor parts  
Pairing: Past pairings mentioned, all canon.  
Warning: Deathfic- again!  
Disclaimer: Own nothing! Except student loans.  
Dedicated to D and his Mom, and the journey they've taken together, and the three and a half years they had to do it in. D- you'll never read this, but I hope you feel it, and I hope she's found her peace.

1

When Dean suggested the Grand Canyon, it wasn't just a line to get Sam off the topic of their father's last words. He'd really meant it. It had been like a family, a home- stuff he wanted to do when the war was over and he had the rest of his life not being on a mission.

Of course, he'll never get that now. The rest of his life is only a year, and while his original mission is over, there are too many demons around for him to ever think of taking that time off from the hunt. He's sacrificed so much, given up what no one should have to give up, but Dean can't step aside and trust others to take care of the innocents. Not when they were there to see the release of demons as bad as the Yellow-Eyed-Son of a Bitch, not when so many families could be torn apart like his was.

Still, he's sure there'll be hunts near there, and he thinks he's earned the chance to visit the Canyon. He's heard it's spectacular, and while he's never studied the art, he's always wanted to be a photographer. Something about losing everything in a fire made him respect mementos of the past. All he has are the photographs that were saved, and his memories, which fade as time passes.

Besides, he wants to see Sam at the Canyon. His favorite memory of his little brother is the way those hazel eyes would widen every time they saw something new. When he was a baby, they were perpetually that way, especially if he flashed something shiny over the kid's eyes, but later it was rarer, and therefore cooler when Sammy was awestruck. Now, he never sees it at all. But the Canyon is said to inspire awe in everyone.

So next time a hunt takes them to the area, he'll make a detour and go there. To see it for the first and last time, and to watch Sam see it.

2.

This one's a shock to Sam. Dean wants to go to Lawrence to see their mother.

He doesn't want the stone the uncle they don't know put up; that place meant little to Dean in the past, now it's associated with a painful memory he doesn't want to revisit. The older Winchester, the oldest Winchester, has no desire to return to the house that's no longer haunted by their mother either. It may be where she lived, but it's also where she _died_.

So instead, Dean drives the Impala to some familiar spots. Most of the places, like the little grocery store and the park she took the boys to, are closed, replaced with big chains. He's saddened by that, but not resentful, because the Winchesters have survived on places like that with their discount prices and anonymity, but he kinda thinks their mother would have protested if she'd been alive to see it. She'd been like that. He tells Sam that, even though it's still hard to talk about her. But Sam eats it up, and its a reminder. In a few months, Sam will be all that's left of their family, and the only one to carry on the stories of the people who were their parents.

He doesn't go to Missouri, but he knows Sam does when he's sleeping in the next morning. It may take an earthquake to raise him when he doesn't have to get up, but in that big-brother way he's always had, he's conscious enough to realize that Sam's up and out at some obscene hour, and he knows where the kid is headed. Sam doesn't even ask him to come along- knows he's terrified of what the strong, blunt woman will say to him after what he did. Just like he knows she'd want to know, that she'll cry for him and promise to help Sam find a way out of the deal.

But he doesn't think she can, or she would have for the bastards who've done this before. He called and asked her, after John, and she'd just been silent. She couldn't reach his mother before, so he doesn't bother to ask her to do it now.

Later, when Sam's back with breakfast, he ignores the tear stains on his little brother's face. It's always been easier not to talk about stuff. Easier for him, and even though he's gotten better about discussing things this last year for Sam, he thinks he's earned the right to silence. Not like Sam won't have the rest of his life to talk things out, but even he's not cruel enough to say that. Especially since all Sam has to point out that he won't have anyone to talk to and he'll have one more reason to feel like he's let someone he loves down.

But before leaving town, there's one last place he wants to go, and he'll take Sam, and he'll _talk_, and for now, that's going to have to be enough. He doesn't tell Sam where, just asks if he's ready and they pack up and leave. Sam just does what he asks, silent, obviously thinking. When they stop at the preschool, Sam perks up a little and looks around. Before he can ask, and he will, Dean offers that this was his, that he came here for a while, and that their mother would come for the last half-hour once a week when they had the kids and a parent do some Mommy and Me activities like planting things or playing music. He said this deprecatingly, with no little guilt. As much as he'd tried, there'd been some things he'd been unable to give Sam.

But Sam doesn't work that way. He's _happy_ to know things like this, and now that he's seen their mother he can picture it. Sure, he's often resentful for what he went through, but now with all he knows he doesn't think he has the right. His resentment is geared towards their lives, their father when John was still alive, and not the brother he understands did everything to save their family. Sam may have said a lot in the past about Dean following John's orders, but he's older now, and he gets it.

It's good that school's out, because Dean picks the lock and unhesitatingly follows his memories to a classroom with chairs so small Sam couldn't even fit one foot on their seats. Later, all he'll remember are bright colors and big shapes all over, because he only focuses on Dean. His brother's obviously lost in a past Sam's never known, when life really was this simple. For the first time, Sam truly wonders whether its better to have loved and lost than never having loved at all.

Eventually, Dean walks out, carefully locking the door behind him, and goes into a small garden. There's a plant outside that he walks to immediately, and tells Sam he planted it with their mother the last time they were there, days before she died. It's big and full-grown, but at the time it was a seed that he put into the soil they'd dug up together. Sam can see it, his brother's little hands carefully handling the tiny hint of life, while his mother smiles at her son. And even though Dean hasn't said anything, Sam knows he was there in a carrier, probably asleep, and wonders how much he figures in these memories that seem to be all about Dean and Mary. He's too tired to feel anything over what they lost, but he remains silent and cries as Dean crouches and begins to speak.

He apologizes to his mother for being too afraid to visit earlier. Then he tells her he loves her, and apologizes again but this time for the year the man they both adored spent in hell. Sam moves then, puts his hand on Dean's shoulder, but still doesn't speak. Finally, the older man says he's sorry again, but this time there's no explanation. How do you ask forgiveness for an eternity apart, for an ever that you won't have together? And when Dean wipes away his own tears and stumbles back to the car, Sam leans down and tells his mother that he'll find a way. Don't worry, he thinks, when my lifetime with Dean is over, we'll all be together again. If he can't manage to save Dean's _life_, he'll save his _soul_, like John's.

When they drive away, Sam looks back and memorizes the place. He'll come back, like he'll go back to the empty grave, when he proposes to the woman he'll spend the rest of his life with, when she tells him she's pregnant and when his son is old enough to travel with them to visit the places that still echo with Mary's laughter and Dean's quiet happiness.

Dean doesn't even turn his head this time, because he knows he won't return. It took him more than two decades to come back, and he only has a few months.

3.

Dean begins his own journal the day after he kills the YED. It fills in the blanks of John's book, documenting ways to kill things and the story of the cowboy cemetery and Samuel Colt for another generation. He doesn't say anything, but he likes the idea of Sam's kids using it one day. Of course, he hopes their Dad is there to guide them, and that they do it to save people when they want, not because they have to.

Like his father, he keeps part of the journal for his memories. He writes down the oddest things there, and it ranges from the moment he killed the demon, the first thing he puts down because it's fresh, to the night he lost his virginity and dude, that was a moment that should go down in history.

There are things he wants to leave for Sam, like the evenings when John would come home and kiss both his sons and their mother, and everything was perfect in the way it should be for children. There is more, from later when everything went bad, because there had been good memories then too, like barbecues in the park, campings on the side of the road when the brothers had eating contests and John forgot the hunt long enough to laugh and cheer them on, congratulating the winner, consoling the loser, and cleaning up both of their vomit without a word of complaint.

He puts down some of the painful moments, like the months and years after Sam went to Stanford, because that's important for his little brother to know too. Interspersed with accounts of binge-drinking and the breakdown of their family, there are hints of the abandonment Dean felt, especially when John left before his older son woke up one morning with just a note announcing that they were now hunting separately. But there is also documentation of the many visits they made to Stanford, including a scouting mission after their credit checks show Sam getting an apartment with a _girl_. Dean thinks to put down that his father _liked_ Jessica because that's the kind of thing his little brother wants to hear.

There's stories of hunters too, beyond the important information that's put in other places in the journal. Things he knows others might forget, and a generation later no one will know since hunters survive by leaving as few tracks as possible. He starts with Pastor Jim and recognizes the man who had not begotten but who was father to hunters everywhere, young and old. He mentions Bobby's eccentricities and kindnesses and the fact that Daniel Elkins made sure they got the Colt to kill the YED before he lost his life. There are memories of Ash, because Dean can think of no other way to thank the man who lost his life probably only because he knew the Winchesters, and still managed to save the world. And he writes about Andy because Dean actually liked the dude the way Dean rarely gets a chance to like people, and the little guy saved his life, told him where his brother was (despite the headache he gave him getting the message across), died fighting a battle he'd never had a chance of winning _and_ lived a life with no other ambition other than happiness. Even though he'd had the power to have anything, do anything, all Andy had done was look for peace and contentment and love, kind of like Dean. He even asks Sam for more information from Andy's last hours, and snickers while he records _downloaded gay porn_. Not for the first time, he wonders why the most interesting people are the first to go. It's as if the demons don't just want an evil world, but a_ boring_ one too!

Sam sees him writing, and though he wants to protest another sign that Dean's giving up hope, he doesn't. Aside from the fact that's he beginning to too, and doesn't want Dean _going_ with regrets, he can't help thinking this is cathartic and healthy. There's a lot Dean's suppressed for a long time.

4

Dean goes back to Cassie. Without going into detail about his soul and Sam's death, he explains that he doesn't have long, but he's not suffering from some disease. She's shocked and saddened by the news and, he thinks, grieving over the loss of what will never be, the future she and Dean will never have. He continues his stance of telling her things he's never told another woman, confessing that she's the only person who's ever let him dream of a future and a family, and she's the only one to tempt him away from his family and the hunt. Even Carmen, who never existed outside of the pages of a magazine, would not have meant half as much as she did had it not been for Mary, Sam and Jessica standing beside her.

He sleeps with her, and even though she has a boyfriend she initiates it and participates with enthusiasm and sweetness their passion left little time for in the past. When he leaves her bed in the early morning, she thinks he whispers that he loves her, but she pretends to be asleep. He's too well trained to fall for it, but it's a kindness she can afford, knowing good-byes are difficult for him, and she doesn't want their last memories of each other to be awkward. But she can hear him in the kitchen, and she knows he's found the coffee and note she got up in the night to leave for him. It's short and sweet, asking him to take care of himself, and telling him she loves him.

He leaves as quietly as he comes, in the car that is home and love and family and a million other things, to join his brother and continue his journey.

She doesn't see him again, but when she finally gets up she sees a note with Sam's number on it. Sitting on a chair, fingering the note, the one thing, she thinks, he gave her, she finally breaks down and weeps.

Two days later, she'll finally break up with the boyfriend she now knows will never be enough, and a month after that she'll know Dean left her with so much more than a piece of paper covered with careless scrawl and dotted with tears.

5.

He takes Sam to Sarah, and pushes him at the pretty gallery-owner. Dean called before, and with his usual bluntness asks if she's seeing someone, and if she's still interested in Sam. Taken off-guard, she's obviously going with offended beyond belief when he tells her he's got weeks left, and wants Sam to know what's there when his brother's not.

He knows he chose right when Sarah's voice cracks with tears and sincere sorrow. She tells him she's available and God, interested, and invites him over. It's an old town, and Dean finds a haunt, and since there are just weeks left Sam hides his suspicions and goes without complaint.

They sleep together this time. It's been long enough that the pain of Jess has dulled, and doesn't stop Sam from looking for happiness where he can find it. With the death of the YED, he no longer feels like he's doomed to be a warrior for the forces of hell, and though the whole demon blood thing has him wondering if he should ever have kids, he's barely 25 and at this point he and Sarah can't think that far ahead. Besides, she's stubborn and strong and more than able to kick his ass if she needs to, so Dean lets himself hope for a future when he sees them together.

They only have a day, and Sam comes with a lot of baggage, so after a night together they're no further than they were before, and part easily. But Dean's sure that when things are bad for Sam, he'll know this is a place he can come.

And for now, that has to be enough.

He says good-bye, and receives a hug he barely knows how to return. When he says good-bye, he does look back at the huge house, the beautiful woman and the culture, sophistication and permanence he's never been able to give his little brother. It's as if this is everything Sam ever wanted, and maybe its significant that Dean can't even imagine having it. But he's come to terms that their dreams are different, and that the only one they really shared was the one that was realized in Wyoming almost a year ago.

But he's lived his life trying to give Sam what he's wanted, as far as he's able, so he tries to give this to him. And when Sam looks out his window, hiding his tears, Dean knows its not for Sarah but because he knows what his brother is trying to do.

6

He goes to the pound and picks the biggest, fuzziest dog he can find. It's a hopeless mutt, with parentage as varied and interesting as Dean and Sam's, and no chance at all of ever becoming useful. It's got a sweet disposition and would probably go crazy trying to lick an incorporeal spirit. It's perfect.

For the first and last time, he lets an animal ride in his beloved car. Dean knows he picked well when Sam leans over and pets the dog until the whining and scratching (and Dean's yelling) gets to him and he crawls into the backseat and wrestles around with it. By the time they get to Bobby's place, the dog has a name- Shaggy, which fits its description.

Sam's been in constant contact with the older hunter, so they know that Ellen is still staying with Bobby. When Dean gets drunk, his traitorous mind punishes him with nightmarish images of what they might be up to together, but in his sober moments he gets that Bobby's letting her heal the way he did for them almost two years ago. When they pull up, he sees the car and realizes Jo is there too, and changes his mind. He doesn't have the strength to say good-bye to all three of them, and besides, he's been wondering if he can say the words at all to the man who has shown him so much kindness.

He tells Sam to stay behind because the clunky klutz will give them away, and ties the dog to the porch. It won't be for long, Sam's exhausted the mutt for now but when it wakes up and gets hungry, it'll make enough noise to wake the dead. Sitting down, he tears one of the last empty pages out of the journal and writes a quick note-_This is Shaggy. Thanks for everything. Take care of Sammy_. Not for the first time, he wishes he had Sam's words, but he doesn't, and this is Bobby. He'll understand.

Before he gets into the car, he stands and stares around him. He rebuilt his baby here, learned to live without John here, received guidance and affection and strength here, and he is so grateful. He thinks of the meetings that sometimes went on here, with Jim, who he still misses, and all those hunters he cared for and respected. Some of them died on the job, some in the roadhouse, but some still remain fighting the good fight, and he silently wishes them well.

Sam isn't crying, he's shed enough tears on these grounds, and he'll be back. Like before, Sam will heal in Bobby's home and this time Shaggy will be there.

Dean wonders if Sam knows the dog is there for him.

7

Dean doesn't want to die. He's done everything he should, so he closes the journal and he knocks Sam over the head and steps over the weird herbs and salt lines his younger brother carefully laid that morning. He walks out into the dark night to meet his fate, and knows he's ready.

But there's a whole lot of distance between _ready_ and _willing_, and Dean's realizing that as his heart pounds and aches and he gets what his dad suffered. It doesn't seem fair that going to hell should be so difficult and scary, when fear and pain are all that await you anyway...

He doesn't regret his decision to save his brother, and he's glad he got to see the end of the YED and the redemption of his father's soul, but he wants to see his brother become a man, graduate, get married. And mortifying as it might be, he thinks it would be cool to see Sam finally become a lawyer too.

When he hears the hounds, he closes his eyes and wills his body to stay still. He won't run and hide, he won't demean his last moments that way, but he doesn't want to die. He wants to grow old, he wants to have kids, and he wants his children to plant seeds in the ground with him like he did with his mother. He had dreams too, and maybe they weren't as grand and glorious as Sam's, but he likes to think that they were just as deserving of fulfillment.

They're upon him before he can breathe, but he doesn't struggle against the savage attack. Maybe that's why when Sam regains consciousness and finds him, his soulless body is barely marked. His eyes are open in an expression of fear. There's no smile, no expression of peace, but Sam doesn't think hell is an option even Dean can take lightly. Still, there's little horror, and even the fear is tempered by the strength that has pulled his older brother through everything he's faced.

Sam doesn't remember burning his brother's body, but he knows he did, after removing the amulet and ring his brother always wore. One he'll bury with his father's dogtags at his mother's headstone, while the other he'll put in the soil with the plant his brother planted so long ago.

He goes back into the motel near the library they'd come to in a last-ditch attempt to save Dean's soul. He's not lost about what to do next- he'll go to Bobby's, and the two, with some help, he's sure, from Jo and Ellen, they'll find some way to redeem Dean's soul. Eventually, when that's done, he'll go after the life Dean wanted him to have, but he'll never stop hunting. It's the family business, and he gets that now even if its possible to walk away from this war, he can't.

But he needs some time to process the fact that even if he can save his soul, he can't do anything about Dean's _life_. He's alone in a way he's never been before, not even when he was at Stanford, and he needs to come to terms with that. But when he collapses on the bed near the door, Dean's bed, he thinks, more tears pouring down his face, he feels something under him, near the scar from the wound that killed him. He pulls out the journal and it falls open to the last page Dean filled out, dog-marked to ensure that it is the first thing Sam sees. There's a longer letter with advice and instructions (many pertaining to the car), one that ends with the first _I love you _his brother has said to him since reaching puberty, that Sam will find later, but this is a simple note his brother scratched out just before hitting him, leaving the room, and _dying_.

_Live, damn you._

On the page immediately opposite is a list of contacts, other hunters, and at the bottom, the number of a few law schools' admissions offices. Sam knows he has to first clear his name, get his diploma, but for right now it's enough to know that he has Dean's blessing.

It's enough to realize he'll _never_ be alone.

THE END- please review!


	2. Six Things Sam Never Wanted to Do

Six Things Sam Never Wanted to Do and One He Does

1.

Sam never wanted to be the last Winchester. It had been his worst nightmare at Stanford, and he'd called Pastor Jim every few months, asking if the older man had spoken to John or Dean, if he knew they were still alive. And every time the minister had confirmed it, Sam had felt the strain leave his shoulders and the tears come into his eyes.

Well, it wasn't as if he'd get a call if something happened... his family wouldn't have given his contact information. Aside from the fact that they never used their real names, he didn't think his father and brother _had _his contact information anymore.

Of course, he'd been wrong about that. It isn't until now, when Sam finally gets to read Dean's journal, that he knows how wrong he's been. His father and brother not only knew every place he lived in for four years, but they had kept his number with them, written on a scrap of paper tucked in their shoes, where no one outside of a CSI would check.

But even knowing that they cared doesn't quite make up for the fact that they're gone. Sam hates that. He doesn't know how to handle the guilt of surviving, of knowing that Dean's soul is the price of his life, of being so important to a demon that everyone in his life has suffered standing in between them. And he wonders what makes him so worthy of being the last Winchester. Yeah, he's done a lot for innocent people, saved a lot of lives, but at the end of the day, a lot of hunters have done the same and not been so lucky.

But he's not going to be stupid and throw it away, or drink a single moment into oblivion. He knows, now, that the cost of each moment is too valuable for him to make meaningless. It's Dean's smile, John's big hands holding him tight and his mother's heart. It's the children Dean will never have, the peace John will never know and the gray hair Mary will never grow. Sam can't waste time.

Mourning people, remembering them, doesn't come under the category of time better spent doing other things, so Sam does it without regrets. He indulges in tears and rituals from visiting Lawrence to returning to the spot on the highway where a big rig rammed the Impala two years ago. It was the last time the three Winchester men had been together in body _and_ spirit, and even though Dean was in a lot of pain and barely conscious, Sam remembers it fondly because he can still feel the hope he'd had for a future. A future that held all three of them.

He stays with Bobby for a while, until the urge to put a bullet in his head disappears. As little as his life seems his own, as important as each moment seems, when he wakes up and realizes he has no family and when he lies down in bed and misses the sound of Dean's snoring, he thinks it would be easier to be dead. But Winchesters rarely take the easy path, so Sam struggles to live and takes solace in Bobby's bracing presence until he's ready to strike out on his own.

It's ironic in more ways than one when he leaves Bobby's and pulls over at an intersection after a few minutes to think about where he wants to go. First, it's apt because he's at a metaphorical crossroads in his life too, trying to see which path he should follow. Secondly- he's now in a place he might be able to summon a demon the way Dean did, which led to this situation of his being alone, and he's helpless. The last promise Dean had extracted from him had been not to make a deal with the dark side, and he won't break it. Especially not since it'll be putting his powers in the hands of those who've been trying to bring about an apocalypse with his assistance. So while he can't do anything to save his brother, he's strong enough to laugh at the irony, pick a direction, and drive there.

2

Sam never wanted to be sad.

Dean had been sad sometimes when they were kids, especially in May the week after Sam's birthday when all the kids made cards for their mothers and stores decorated shelves with maternal themes. He and John also went silent around the first week of November, and while it had taken Sam a while to understand they were mourning more than the death of summer, he identified with them all to well after Jess.

But throughout his admittedly moody adolescence, Sam had kept his core happy-go-lucky kid alive. He'd believed in a better life, and that faith had given him a reason to smile first thing in the morning and last thing before he went to sleep. He'd been helped in that by Dean- his older brother had been able to see the humor in every situation and shared it with the world. Even when Sam had winced and said _Dean!_ in that oh-so-proper, shocked tone of voice, he'd had a smile on his face and a laugh on the inside.

So yeah, Sam wanted to be happy. And when he got to Stanford and become a normal person, and then met the woman of his dreams who had actually loved him as much as he loved her, he'd _been_ happy. He'd been so happy he became careless and stopped salting doors and windows to keep bad things away. And then all those reasons to be happy had gone away, but he'd still had this brother. He'd still had the hope of finding happiness.

And the first day he woke up as the only surviving member of his family, Sam wondered when the last time he'd been happy had been. And if he'd ever be happy again.

3.

Sam hated hunting. Unlike Dean, he'd never told his father he wanted to be just like him, and he'd certainly never espoused a great desire to be a hunter.

As a kid, he'd fantasized about his future. For the first few years, it hadn't been that difficult. Dean, and _yes_ even their father, had tried to keep the reality of their lives hidden from the youngest Winchester. He'd had dreams, big, fantastic dreams, but eventually all little boys must grow up, and the dreams children dream turn to dust.

Sam was like Peter Pan. He tried to hold on to parts of his childhood, especially his dreams, to the point of shutting out the truth when it challenged his rose-colored glasses. While he decided not to be a fireman around the time he found out the truth about his mother's death, he kept the image of himself as an adult doing _something_ other than hunting, and being good at it. When he realized it wouldn't be easy, he worked that much harder at school and tore his heart out and walked out on his family at the right time. It hadn't been that difficult to leave John- anger was a wonderful anesthetic. But Dean had been mother, father, older brother, bodyguard, best friend and companion and something indefinable but _necessary_, and living without him had been almost impossible that first year at Stanford.

Which was probably why it had been so easy to get used to being with Dean on the road again. And why losing him for that last time, permanently, was killing Sam.

And it seemed somewhat ironic that in death Dean had tied him to hunting in a way John had never been able to, because how could Sam walk away from the life his brother had considered a calling? So even when he became the lawyer his father would never have wanted him to be, he took off and joined Bobby on hunts over long weekends for years, until Bobby joined John and Dean and Mary on the list of people who'd left Sam to face life alone.

Even then, Sam kept on hunting. He just found other people to hunt with. When his body aged and his family begged him to stop, he used his mind to be a resource for hunters all over America and the world. He published books on the work his family had accomplished. The first one was little more than a cleaned-up version of John Winchester's journal, and how Sam had laughed when he'd seen it shelved in the fiction section.

The day Sam Winchester realized he was truly a hunter was the day he stood back and watched his daughter take off the head of a vampire. He'd not only spent a lifetime killing the supernatural, he'd actually passed the legacy on.

And God, if there'd been one thing Sam had wanted less than to be a hunter; it was to teach his children to be hunters.

4

Sam had never wanted to raise Dean's kid.

It had been his nightmare from around the time Dean turned sixteen and fucked anything that moved. While Dean had maintained a certain respect for women, and never touched one in anger unless she was possessed, he had a certain fondness for those who didn't know _how_ to say no.

John had never given them the talk. He'd left Dean to figure that out for himself; much the way he'd tackled every other milestone in Dean's life with the exception of his older son's 18th birthday- when he'd handed him the keys to the Impala and told him to treat her like the lady she was. Dean had made sure Sam knew the details of safe sex long before Sam was tempted to try out any of his brother's suggestions, which was the beginning of Sam's deep obsessive fear that his brother would impregnate some girl and then be promptly murdered by her father or brother. Leaving Dean junior to be raised by Sam because God knew John Winchester was incapable of raising children.

It doesn't happen that way. Instead, Sam got a phone call from Cassie one morning telling him she was in the maternity ward of a hospital not too far away, and had just given birth to his niece. Sam doesn't remember getting up and dressing, but he must have because his brother's ex-girlfriend didn't laugh when she saw him. She didn't cry either, but she looked like she wanted to.

Cassie eventually gets married, but from the beginning Sam is the foremost male influence in the child's life. He was there when the kid took her first steps, took her camping and watched her plays.

And because he isn't John, Sam leaves hunts to be there at important times. When he does that, he likes to think he's making up for all the times no one gave up _anything_ for Dean.

Four weeks before her thirteenth birthday, Sam supplements the talk Cassie already gave her with a lecture on the many reasons men were not to be trusted. And when he does, he wishes Dean was there to do it, but he can't help marveling at the proverbial circle of life Elton John sung about.

5.

Sam never wanted to get married without his family there. He had thought his marriage to Jess would have been like that, and for one shining second when Dean had shown up at his house and spirited him away, he'd _hoped_ things would be different.

They weren't. When Sam married, he was the only living member of his immediate family left. One of the last things Dean had done was contact some of their mother's relatives and ensure that Sam had them to turn to if he wanted. It had taken some time, but eventually Sam had reached out and developed relationships with cousins. They had been there at the wedding, and he'd been grateful, but they were _kin_, not _family_. They hadn't been there at his birth, held him when he was sick or taught him to burp the alphabet.

So even though he was crazy in love with the woman he was marrying, even though he would actually find happiness and faith in love and life with her, have children with her, he missed their presence more than he had thought he would. He had left a couple of seats empty in the front row where he liked to imagine his parents would have been and at some points in the ceremony he could almost see his mother crying and his father beaming that slightly shy and proud smile of his.

He didn't have a best man, despite his adherence to traditions. His fiancée had tried to convince him to use one of her brothers, but he'd been unable to bear the thought of anyone else standing beside him at the altar. And, ironically enough, while he always felt Dean by his side, he'd never felt his absence more than he had on that day.

6

Sam had never wanted to be alone when he died.

He'd never thought anyone should be alone when they died. There had always been power in the knowledge that his mother and Jess had died looking down on him, that he'd been looking up at them when they took their last breaths.

John may not have known it, but Sam and Dean were there when he died too. They'd stood in the doorway of his hospital room, watched doctors working on his, and _willed_ him to live. Even more importantly, when John's spirit caught up with his body and finally found its rest, Sam and Dean had been there to watch and cry and send all the love they had to the man who had raised them, for better or worse. There were many regrets that Sam had about his relationship with his father, but he was glad that he'd been there when it was most important.

He'd tried to be there for Dean too. He'd tried so hard that Dean had to knock him out or there would have been two bodies lying there the next day. And, he thinks, for all Dean's vulnerabilities, he'd been the strongest man alive to face such a fate without someone there to hold his hand.

But Sam, Sam's alone in a hospital bed. His wife has long gone to join Jess, Mom, Dad and even Dean, whose soul managed to get out of hell with minimal help from his little brother. Sam has a feeling the demons down there got sick of him, but he wishes they hadn't felt the need to endure Dean for three years. That time was painful for Sam, whose imagination allowed him to see all too clearly his brother's suffering.

Sam's kids are on their way, but he knows they won't make it. He can feel death, and he's not angry at his fate. He's seen the end of one century and more than half of another, watched his children and grandchildren grow up and even watched a great-grandchild ride his bike for the first time. But he's spent so much time fighting the undead that he wishes he weren't facing this journey alone, that his family was there.

It isn't until the end that Sam realizes his family may not be there for the beginning of this journey, but they'll be there to welcome him home.

7.

Sam's always wanted to believe.

Watching X Files in dingy hotel rooms, Sam had marveled at the juxtaposition between belief and faith in the show. It was ironic that religion was a huge part of the skeptic's life and not so much the believer's. Of course, that wasn't as disturbing as Dean's out of control crush on Scully, but it was interesting. It was as if belief in the supernatural presupposed a distance from creationism.

Sam never got that. Okay, he understood and kind of agreed with Darwinism. But God, whether you were Muslim, Jewish or Christian, or a follower of any other kind of higher being, did not mean you couldn't hunt the supernatural. After all, many of those faiths had incorporated rituals that hunters used on a daily basis, but those same staunch men and women who held crosses and used water blessed by priests or imams couldn't trust in angels and _good_ power.

For some time, Sam wondered if that _visibility_ meant that evil was more powerful.

Then he grew older, and came to see the value of choice, and wholeheartedly embraced a path that left good and evil up to him. He'd begun to go to church with Jess for reasons other than taking holy water or seeking refuge, and enjoyed it. When that too was taken away from him, he'd found solace in solitary prayer, but kept it from Dean for some time. The younger sibling in him didn't want to have his faith shaken by the scorn of the one person who had the power to challenge everything Sam found sacred.

And despite all he saw and experienced, all he suffered over his parents' deaths, Sam wanted to believe so strongly he embraced the few opportunities he had to do so. And for the one year he fought for Dean's soul, he prayed so hard for his brother that he knew God couldn't ignore him.

And when nothing happened, when his miracle didn't appear, his faith died with his brother. He still fought for good, but he did it without the trust that that some all-powerful being was at his side.

Later, when he had children, he went through the motions of believing because he wanted his kids to have the faith he could no longer muster. Because he knows it got him through some difficult times, he gives them the opportunity he never had. Because the thing is- Sam's always wanted to believe, but he's not sure he's ever truly been able to.


End file.
